The Texan Podcast - Weekly Roundup - July 12, 2024

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

Take our survey for a chance to win a free hat or t-shirt of your choice: https://form.typeform.com/to/cehHQka0Show off your Lone Star spirit with a free "Remember the Alamo" hat with an annual subscription to The Texan: https://thetexan.news/subscribe/ The Texan’s Weekly Roundup brings you the latest news in Texas politics, breaking down the top stories of the week with our team of reporters who give you the facts so you can form your own opinion. Enjoy what you hear? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review! Got questions for the reporting team? Email [e-mail] — they just might be answered on a future podcast.This week on The Texan’s “Weekly Roundup,” the team discusses:Hurricane Beryl Leaves Over 1.5 Million Without Power in Southeast Part of TexasBiden Grants Federal Disaster Declaration for Hurricane Beryl Following Acting Gov. Patrick’s RequestAbbott on ‘Economic Development Mission’ in Taiwan, South Korea, and JapanAbortion Exceptions and IVF Need Legislative Clarification, Says Texas SenatorOutgoing Rep. Frazier Sues Former Opponent for Defamation Over Criminal AccusationsPresident Joe Biden to Visit the LBJ Presidential Library in AustinCruz Launches Investigation into Whether Big Tech is Funding Biden Administration Staff SalariesMexican Citizen Pleads Guilty in Scheme to Smuggle Ammunition to Drug Cartels

But as it was being discussed on the House floor, Troy Nels spoke. And as is common with Troy Nels, he was wearing his Trump gear. He was wearing a Trump tie this time. Nice big red Trump tie. Wow. I thought I'd mentioned that.

Yes, that seems to be certainly something that Congressman Nels is very comfortable with doing and always provides some interesting fodder for conversation. Interesting to watch different congressional members and how they approach the presidential cycle, the Trump of it all, and certainly Nels is one that is very supportive of the former president. Well, howdy, folks. It's Mackenzie DeLulo here with Brad Johnson and Cameron Abrams on another episode of the Weekly Roundup Podcast. Gentlemen, how's Austin today?

It's good. It's been hot. Cameron said the homeless crackheads are out in rare form today. Wow, we are really... Over the past couple days, it seems like when I walk to the gym, the Gold's Gym over on 6th Street, there's quite a few homeless just lurking about. They've been gathering in these little spots on corners, and I try to avoid those corners as best I can, but sometimes, um, the walk signs don't align with where I'm trying to go. So, um, but you know, that's what comes with being in Austin. So, well, I think it's about half the temperature almost as it is in austin right now where i am it's 55 degrees here

and where are you rainy windy cold yeah where are you right brad that was where in the world is carmen wow guys thank you so much for asking i'm in edinburgh scotland and cameron is well aware of this fact because i visited a Harry Potter themed museum store yesterday. Gosh. And, oh my gosh, don't even talk to me, Bradley. I actually have not read the Harry Potter books. I didn't watch them until I was 22. I'm not one of those crazy fans.

I enjoy them profusely, but they're not my favorite in the entire world. But even if I did, Brad, get off my butt about it. But Cameron was excited about this visit. So I sent him some photos. So he was aware of this visit, Brad. Maybe you're just jealous that I shared this information with him. I am so jealous. Well, one of the videos that you sent me, you were checking out a bunch of different wands. Did you purchase a wand? I did not. They were, they're beautiful though.

And it's interesting watching. I think they're pretty accurate to the movies. I'd have to look closer, do my research. But it was interesting because they had one for Harry Potter. They had James Potter. They had Dumbledore. All the different wands from the movies for the different characters. They had a wand for them there. And they have to be the exact replicas, right? I mean, why else would they do that?

Brad, why don't you let people have their things? Because I'm a curmudgeon. There you go. That's the correct answer. But, Cameron, you seem to be a Harry Potter fan. I don't know why I would have had that inclination to send those to you yesterday. I have no issue with someone being a Harry Potter fan. I don't know why I would have had that inclination to send those to you yesterday.

I have no issue with someone being into Harry Potter. But, like, buying wands and stuff, if you're an adult, come on. Like, I read the books and I watched the movies, but I'm not, like, obsessed with it or anything like that. It was just a cultural phenomenon at the time. And so. Totally. I went along with it, know Cameron did you go to any of the premieres and dress up I didn't no oh okay I didn't either but I would have probably

for like Lord of the Rings had I been in that age I was much yeah I was I was a big Lord of the Rings fan too I didn't read the books. I just watched the movies. I know. Okay, see that doesn't, that's, you got to read the books, Kim. I know. And you call me a nerd. I had a chain mail bracelet. I had a chain mail bracelet that I wore all through grade school

because I loved my Dragon Book series. Dweeb. So Brad. Dweeb. Totally. You're lucky you didn't go to public school otherwise you've been bullied you know i probably would have taken joy in it bradley i want to ask brad though what's your most nerdy hobby or thing that you like that

would be associated with being a nerd. How does he choose? I don't know. I wouldn't say anything. Anything? Mackenzie has something on her mind, I think. Well, I'm trying to think of what is... Because Brad is... Nothing to that level.

I don't think that any necessarily of his... Okay, nothing to that level, but I would disagree with that because to what level is somebody obsessive? I don't even think necessarily your interests are, no, they are. Your interests can be definitely nerdy. The things you read on a weekend, the things you choose to do with your time, how interested you are in sports, all those things can be just as leveled up as somebody who really likes Harry Potter. The time... But Brad, you are a million... The amount of time my friends and I have spent

just sitting on the couch naming random football players from 20 years ago, if that counts, then that's it. Okay. That's it right there. And I guess my point is that everyone has their thing. And if yours is Harry Potter and you're listening to this podcast, great.

Good for you. You should go to this museum I saw in Edinburgh. If you are into sports like Brad, great. Name players from 20 years ago. You don't see me wearing a Detroit Lions helmet to the office. You do. Don't you wear a polo that has a little Detroit Tigers logo on it, though? Yeah, but that's just, that's the logo.

I'm not suiting up like she is with her chainmail bracelet. That's true. By the way, we should conclude this and get to the actual news. Brad, if you want to poo-poo on 12-year-old Mackenzie wearing her chainmail bracelet as she was reading Jane Austen and having the time of her life then you are welcome to do that oh I would love to do that okay great well on that note now it's moved to ridiculing me as a child that seems appropriate let's move on to the news there's no smooth transition there, but we're just going

to do it. Rip the bandaid off. Brad, the biggest news story of the week, Texas was hit with its first hurricane of the year. How bad was it and what's the fallout? So Hurricane Beryl had been tracked for a couple of weeks and it was moving up through Central America and and then across the gulf and a lot of talk about when it would hit texas and where it would hit texas originally projections thought it would hit uh near brownsville um that did not happen it took it veered off east um a bit over the gulf and eventually made landfall between Corpus and Galveston. And it was a tropical storm just before reaching landfall in Texas. It became a hurricane again. It had actually, you know, recharged over the Gulf,

and that's what made it upgrade into a hurricane. Anything above 75 mile per hour winds, I believe, counts as a hurricane. And I heard that it was actually, it was a good thing that it made landfall when it did because if it spent any more time over the open water, it would have grown possibly into a category two or higher but that said it still hasn't been a good situation there are right as of now 1.3 million people still out of

power across the state that's down significantly from 2.7, I think has been the top number, and that was on Monday. The hurricane hit Texas early Monday morning and hit the coast and moved into Houston, up the east side of the state, and then out. And now it's well out of Texas, but we're still feeling the effects. Seven people died so far, at least that's the last count I heard. A couple carbon monoxide poisonings, people running generators in or near their house or open windows. One drowning, very sad. A Houston police, I don't know if it was an officer or an employee of the police department, died when his car got stuck in floodwaters on the way to work. It's just, it's been bad. And, you know, Centerpoint is getting a lot of, the utility there is getting a lot of grief.

And it sounds like the accusations that have been made that they weren't adequately prepared, they didn't stage agents and resources sufficiently enough in advance of the hurricane hitting, and, you know, Centerpoint is, the vast majority of these outages are in Centerpoint's service area, so there's gonna be a lot of fallout, I assume legislatively over that. But right now they're just trying to pick up the pieces and get power back on. CenterPoint did bring in over 11,000 contractors from other parts of the state or out of state to help restore power. They had been assessing damages for the first 24 to 48 hours, and then they sent out, sent the linemen out to go fix things after that. That is underway right now, and power is being

restored, but we're still well away from getting everybody's power back on. Obviously, it's really hot, and it may not be quite as bad a situation to be in as the 2021 storm in terms of temperature, dealing with that without power. But it's still not good, right? And everyone wants their power back on. So, you know, maybe by the time this podcast goes out, they'll have made even more progress. I think they will.

But it's a question of how quickly and is it sufficient enough? Did they have the necessary protocols in place to fix this problem in a quick enough time? Has there been any response from CenterPoint on why the adequate provisions weren't in place for a storm like this? Because we've seen something to a degree like Katrina happen. So there's precedent to be set to prepare for a storm. So has there been a response? Well, and also it's Houston. Houston gets hit with hurricanes fairly frequently.

It's a question of how severe they are, right? They have not, at least to state officials' liking, sufficiently explained why they were caught off guard or how off guard they were caught. You know, one thing I heard is that it sounds like a lot of the damage to power lines is from falling trees, obviously, but trees have been more vulnerable because of the freezing and the drought that's occurred, and so that may be an explanation for why it's a Category 1 hurricane. It's not even close to what happened in 2017, 2018 with Harvey. That was a Category 4, I believe, but still causing a massive amount of damage. And they're still picking up the pieces on it.

Interesting. Brad, let's talk about response from the state and the federal government. Both state officials and federal authorities have sparred during this whole fallout of the storm. What's happened? Give us the update. So there have been disaster declarations approved by the state for 121 counties going into the period where the hurricane was going to make landfall. The federal government, Joe Biden, president also issued his own disaster declarations for, I believe, it's like 80 counties, so not all of the ones that the state approved. And so that has caused this fight between the lieutenant governor, the president, and the

governor. The governor, of course, oversees on a trade mission in Asia. Cameron will talk more about that. But he's been out of the picture, at least in-person picture, during this. He said he's still monitoring the situation and has been the one handling the messaging and all the press conferences on this issue alongside the Texas Department of Emergency Management. They said that TDEM had its resources staged well beforehand and was ready for this. The question is, did CenterPoint follow that lead? We'll see how the follow-up goes. But in terms of these officials sparring, there's a question over how quickly Texas got its federal disaster declaration. And President Biden put out a statement. He talked to the Houston Chronicle that ran a story saying that he couldn't get a hold of either Abbott or Patrick. Both Abbott and Patrick hit back at that, saying,

you can get a hold of us pretty easily. Your FEMA officials are here with us. If you wanted to get a hold of us, it was not that hard. Patrick also has, since he's here on the ground, he's also hit back even more, saying that, you know, I talked to him alongside T-Dem Chief Dem Kid, and who's right, who's wrong, you know, like they're not going to, nobody's going to give any ground on this.

Didn't Patrick post receipts at one point? He did, yeah. Like a phone call. Yeah, yeah, yeah. this didn't patrick post receipts at one point like a call log yeah yeah so um you know overall the disaster declaration has been made and how much um one thing patrick said was we had to assess the damage before we requested the disaster declaration from the federal government. How much does this actually matter in terms of timing? You know, a lot of this stuff, it deals with picking up the pieces afterwards in terms of paying for reimbursing costs. There are some front forward looking aspects of it in terms of deploying resources, but FEMA was already here working with the state. So I think it's a lot of bluster over nothing, but of course, you know, it's politics and, you know, feelings are bruised

based on accusations made. And who knows if the president was just being flippant about that statement or if he really meant it. But it has definitely kind of stained the discussion over this response. It's just odd that the President of the United States says he can't get on the phone with someone. You're the President of the United States. You should be able to get on the phone with anyone if you really wanted to. Well, you know Patrick's contention is your federal employees are here with me on the ground constantly. You're telling me you couldn't get a hold of me. That's fair contention I think but yeah so it's a mess but importantly improvement is being made. Not soon enough though it sounds like but people's power is getting back on. The flooding

has subsided. That was a big problem. That was a big warning that state officials made. Now it's just a matter of fixing what's been broken. There you go. And Cameron, let's then pivot to why the governor is out of the country. He's taking a trip overseas, like Brad mentioned, to visit three Asian countries. Tell us about his trip. Yeah, so this was a pre-planned trip. He has headed to Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. And Abbott actually announced that Taipei will be the location of the state of Texas-Taiwan office. And this three-nation tour was for an economic development mission, and it was actually highlighted by the signing of an economic development statement of interest between Texas and Taiwan.

And the reason why that's significant is because Taiwan is known as the silicon shield as being a major, excuse me, as a major manufacturer of microprocessors, otherwise known as semiconductors. And Abbott has continually encouraged the production of the semiconductors. He signed the Texas Chip Act in 2023 to further the research and manufacturing of microchips in the state of Texas. And Abbott is also visiting, like I mentioned, South Korea. And he spoke with business leaders about opportunities to further deepen those trade relationships. And since the time of our reporting, he's actually met with Toyota executives in Japan. And this isn't the first time Abbott has gone overseas like this to Asian nations to improve economic relations. He went back in 2019.

He visited Japan and South Korea to meet with business executives in the automotive industry. So just to further emphasize what Brad was talking about earlier, this was a pre-planned trip and he has continually put out statements in regard to the response to Barrow while he has been in these Asian nations. So just a little bit of an update on what and why he's over there right now. Certainly. And yes, pre-planned trip. This is something that has been on the docket for a while. It does not insulate him from criticism of folks saying, why is the governor out of the country when there is a natural disaster that has taken landfall in Texas? So certainly a lot of the coverage and the discussion is surrounding the governor's absence, but Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, you know, as acting governor, very interesting to

watch this line of succession in terms of the governorship actually play out in real time. We've seen this happen a couple of other times when the governor has been out of the country on similar trips before where the lieutenant governor is cited as the acting governor but it's interesting in a situation this significant yes this is oh absolutely this is the first time in abbott's tenure i think that this is where we've seen something like this and it's been this apparent obvious and large scale affecting the lives of tex in this way. So absolutely. Cameron, thanks for running us through that. Brad, the Attorney General Ken Paxton and the House General Investigating Committee, it's safe to say there's no love lost between those two entities. The

General Investigating Committee in the House was, of course, the body that sparked all of the impeachment proceedings last summer. And now the attorney general has fired another shot at the committee this week, kind of unprompted. It was kind of out of the blue. Tell us about it. So Attorney General Ken Paxton accused the House General Investigating Committee of trying to impeach him again at the body's meeting that's scheduled for next week. Should be stated right up top, there is no indication that the meeting is related to Paxton or the office of attorney general or the impeachment that had happened. But it did catch a lot of us off guard when, I think it was on July 1st, the committee just unprompted published a committee notice

stating it was going to meet on July 17th, and that's coming up next week. And what that's about, nobody knows totally for sure. There are a few guesses, but it does seem that it is not about Paxton. However, Paxton, in case it is about him, got out in front of it and said in a statement, he said on Newsmax, and then he later released it via email, quote, next week's House General Investing Committee is yet another desperate attempt by the Republican establishment to impeach me. Their bitter obsession with taking me down knows no bounds, and they will stop at nothing to remove me from office.

So clearly a preemptive move there. And, you know, from a political perspective, either this was about Paxton, he got out in front of it, and he can say, guess what, I knew, and call you on it. Or it's not about Paxton, and he can say, well, they just pivoted after we called him on it. So politically, even though there's not really any justification for the claim that it's Paxton, politically it probably plays well, I think. One member on the House General Investigating Committee told me that there's no basis to the claim that it relates to Paxton, and then multiple sources in the building have told me that it is not. So I still don't know exactly what it is, and when they meet, they'll just go into executive session,

and they'll talk about whatever they're going to talk about behind the scenes and we won't really be able to get confirmation at least at the moment what it is but they are taking up another another matter or a matter that has already been filed you know we had obviously the paxton impeachment we had the slayton expulsion there was another complaint filed before the Slayton expulsion maybe it's about that about an unrelated state rep but it could be a number of things because how much how tight-lipped that committee operates and I mean they investigate very sensitive topics so two questions for you yeah was last year with what you mentioned the Paxson impeachment and the

Slayton expulsion what is that an unusual amount of activity that occurred in the investigations committee or is this typical? Oh, yeah. That was unusual. Oh, very much so. And compared to other state legislatures, is Texas, is the Texas legislature, are they more active in their investigative committees? Or is this sort of typical of how state legislatures act in terms of looking into issues related to members? I have no idea about other states. You can look at, though, Congress, and there they have their own investigative committee. They're also fairly open about what it is they're looking into. Take Troy Nels, Congressman Troy Nels. It was announced that there was a probe into him. I don't know where that's gone. I don't know.

I haven't been paying attention to that. But that is a difference that I've noticed. The transparency aspect. Yeah, well, yeah, the explicit transparency, you know, like stating what you're talking about. Sometimes, you know, a lot of these deal with complaints against members or from staff against members or inner office complaints. You know, all this stuff can be very sensitive matters. And, you know, that often requires secrecy to protect the identity of people. I was just going to add that, to your point, Brad,

this committee can investigate things, you know, as small, quote-unquote, as a dispute between a staffer and a member, which can be very sensitive and a big deal internally, but maybe not something that's as public-facing of an issue. Or it can handle the impeachment of a statewide official so that's you know the the range of which this committee can um can operate within so also they when matt krause was head of general investigating didn't he do the investigation into into books in schools like sexually explicit books in schools wasn't that gi, I think you're right.

So that's another, that one was out in the open. That wasn't held close to the chest. They talked about it. They didn't go into everything during their meetings. And I think they still did went into executive session, but that's a different kind of inquiry as well. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you, Brad, for detailing that for us.

And certainly something to keep an eye on the House General Investigating Committee. Cameron, we're coming to you. A Texas lawmaker recently made some comments about IVF, a big issue. I think a lot of the pro-life conversations, the abortion conversations have now pivoted to be about IVF and future legislation to address abortion. Tell us about this issue. Yeah. So Senator Brian Hughes, in an interview on Inside Texas Politics, was asked if he thinks the Texas legislature would consider banning in vitro fertilization or IVF. And he said, I don't. And he went on to mention how in previous years when pro-life legislation was passed, it, quote, carved out provisions for IVF. And he also went on to explain that, quote, there are always going to be

developments on how it's done, how it's done ethically. Those are always going to come up. A ban on in vitro fertilization will not be going anywhere. And this was interesting comments from Hughes because we saw back in February, Governor Greg Abbott said there would be no doubt that IVF would be addressed in Texas, as his comments came after the Alabama Supreme Court decision that ruled frozen embryos used during IVF are human lives under Alabama state law. And when it comes to the clarification that was mentioned by Hughes on when it's medically necessary for an abortion to take place, Hughes mentioned that they previously passed House Bill 3058, which states that when a physician exercises, quote, reasonable medical judgment in a case of ectopic pregnancy or other health risks to the mother, then actions such as an abortion can be taken by that physician. Hughes went on to explain that we may need to clarify that language just to make sure. He said, quote, we don't want to give doctors or hospitals

any excuse not to help those moms in those situations. And we've seen the issue of the medically necessary point of these abortion laws come up in the amendments that were recently adopted by the Texas Medical Board. That's been something we've covered extensively. If people want to check out what those amendments are, the clarifying aspects of those amendments, check it out on the texan.news. There you go, Cameron, killing it. Thank you. Bradley, coming to you, a state representative is now suing his former opponent. What are the details? State Rep. Frederick Frazier, Republican from McKinney, filed a defamation suit against his 2022 primary challenger, Paul Chabot, in June. It centers on comments made about the representative's legal woes from the lawsuit.

Quote, Defendant Paul Chabot has perpetuated a systematic and public campaign of defamation against Frederick Frazier, a distinguished retired Dallas police officer, and a current member of the Texas legislature representing Collin County, Texas. The complaint continues. Defendants' sweeping and relentless defamatory crusade against Mr. Frazier encompasses a series of false and injurious statements distributed across various platforms, including including social media, public forums, the website www.firefraser.com, and video content. Chabot has, what this focuses on generally is the legal issues that Fraser has had. He was accused by Chabot in 22 of impersonating a code officer in order to get a Walmart to remove Chabot's large 4x8 yard sign that was on its property, and Frazier had said it was in a right-of-way, obscuring vision on the road. There was a Texas Rangers investigation investigation came out with a report ultimately

frazier was indicted and charged with a few things criminal mischief was one a misdemeanor another one was impersonating a public official. That was a third-degree felony. That went on for a couple years before we got resolution. In December, Frazier entered a plea deal, which dropped the felony charges to misdemeanors and then gave him deferred adjudication in exchange for one year of that in exchange for basically the charges being dropped at some point. Then the judge earlier this year did grant him early release from the adjudication and dismiss the charges. So that's gone. It's not a thing anymore, at least legally. The discussion is still happening, though, about those accusations. And it was very much a theme in the primary,

even though Chabot was not running against Frazier this time. Instead, it was Carissa Richardson who defeated Frazier in the runoff. Chabot was very active in putting it out there and running the firefraser.com website. Chabot's attorney, Tony McDonald, told the Texan, quote, it's a ridiculous lawsuit. Fraser should be ashamed of filing it. And Fraser feels like he has to file this because these comments have been made about him

and that has damaged his reputation. A lot more of the legal back and forth details in the article. But overall, defamation suits have not survived scrutiny very much recently in Texas politics. And it'll be interesting to see if this does have any legs, if it gets anywhere. But yeah, that's the intention for filing it well that's what i was going to ask too is your thoughts on the changes of success for the suit but i do want to clarify that this is the former which you said but really hammer this home this is the former opponent so not this last cycle but the previous cycle this is um this is that opponent. So we have Carissa Richardson,

who just ran this cycle in 2024 and actually defeated Frazier. And certainly was one of the races I think a lot of folks had their eyes on in terms of a vulnerable incumbent. And that was the result we ended up seeing. But this is old beef that has certainly not gone away and has remained. So that's OK. So talk about the chances of this going forward. Well, you know, we we've seen recent defamation suits filed. We saw Kelsey Warren, an energy CEO, sue Beto O'Rourke for comments. the then-Democratic candidate for governor made on the campaign trail, basically accusing him of bribery and a few other pretty serious accusations. Then we saw a defamation suit filed against pro-life activist Mark Lee Dixon

by a number of pro-choice groups because he likened abortion to murder. They said they were accusing him of a crime, them of a crime. And then in a similar vein to that, you had State Representative Jeff Leach sued for defamation by a Texan activist, Morgan McComb, for likening Texan to treason. and all of those got dismissed. The latter two are pretty similar in their themes. The other one is as well. Based on the words stated by O'Rourke on the campaign trail actually making bribery accusations rather than just,

you're committing treason because you like Texit or abortion is murder, you know that kind of thing. That was different. And so I thought if anything had a chance to get any traction, it would have been that one,

the O'Rourke-Warren one, and it didn't. It got dismissed. That's probably going to happen here. Maybe it gets a favorable ruling in the district court and goes up to appeals court and gets slapped down, or maybe like the first two cases I mentioned, the Warren and then the Mark Lee Dixon one, those made it up to the Supreme Court. But overall, it's very hard to prove defamation because of the malice requirements. And also, statements made in the political sphere have broad protection. So, you know, politicians don't like that because people say a lot of things about them that they

can't really push back on at least legally through this method but um that's kind of how it's been and i have a hard time believing it's going to go in a different way but we shall see absolutely another defamation uh horse to watch brad, thank you. Cameron, we are coming back to you here. A very notable figure and one that has made headlines even more than usual considering his position will be visiting Austin next week. Tell us about it. Yes, the second mention we're having on the podcast of President Joe Biden. And this time around is because he announced he'll be traveling to Austin to visit the LBJ Presidential Library. And in the official White House announcement of the trip details, the visit will serve as a chance for the president to speak about the 60-year anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. We talked a lot at the top about the disagreements and discrepancies of contacts that were had between Biden and some of our elected officials here in Texas, but Biden has continually been in the news post-presidential debate, and that makes this announcement of his visit to Austin even more notable because it was also

announced he'll be sitting down with Lester Holt of NBC on Monday for an interview. So this will be a second chance for Biden to talk in an interview setting, post-presidential debate. There's been lots of calls from both elected officials and political pundits discussing Biden's viability in the 2024 presidential race. We will see if there are further calls for either him to step down or remain in the race. But that is a evolving conversation, seems like day to day. So we'll be covering the visit on Monday. And we'll have an update for all of our listeners and readers. And by we, we mean Cameron. So Cameron, thank you for covering that. We're going to stick with you here. Senator Ted Cruz is questioning how a Biden administration executive order was carried out. This is a pretty spicy story. Tell us about it. Yeah. So Ted Cruz launched an investigation into

whether the Biden administration used the, quote, obscure Intergovernmental Personnel Act program to fund big tech employees as part of an executive order that's actually related to AI. So just for some context, back in October 2023, Biden issued this executive order to establish, quote, new standards for AI safety and security. The order also aimed to address, quote, best practices for authenticating content and calls on Congress to pass, quote, bipartisan data privacy legislation. And six months after that executive order was issued, the White House actually stated that they had completed all of the actions in that order. So in Cruz's investigation announcement, he cast doubt on

whether the hiring of, quote, only 150 people into AI roles was enough to be able to complete all of the required work that was established in that executive order. Cruz also highlighted a number of reported incidents where, through this Intergovernmental Personnel Act program, big tech CEOs funded salaries of employees working in government agencies. And I'll read here from Cruz's statement saying, quote, in effect, large AI technology companies are influencing the Biden administration's AI policy from the inside and advancing their own anti-competitive agenda to shape the future of the AI industry. So pretty strong statement there. And AI being a evolving field, we're actually going to be seeing AI

addressed here in Texas. They put out a report on that. I covered it in a newsletter if people want to check that out. But in Cruz's announcement, he says he sent letters to the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Commerce, National Science Foundation, and the Department of Transportation to investigate if this Intergovernmental Personnel Act program was used to temporarily hire from big tech companies to assist in carrying out Biden's AI executive order. So lots of moving pieces here, lots of different federal agencies involved in this investigation. And it being a topic like AI, which continues to be a burgeoning field of research, not many people are that familiar with how AI is going to be used in the future and how it's currently being used within our government programs. This will be an interesting investigation to follow to see how entrenched these private

big tech organizations have become with government agencies through this program and through this executive order. So something I'll definitely be keeping my eye on. And I would definitely recommend folks go read this story at the Texan because I, this is one of those stories that in the process of editing, I kept highlighting parts like, is this right? Is this real? This seems wild, but these are the allegations being levied. So very interesting.

A lot of intersections here of different hot topics and obviously Cruz versus the Biden administration in any form or fashion is certainly something, a storyline that we're very familiar with. But it's a very, very interesting story and a lot of intersections here on hot topics. And I'll mention, if people want a deeper dive into AI and its development and its history as well. I've written two separate newsletters on the topic. You can check it out on the texan.news. If you click on newsletters and you go to redacted, I have one, I believe it's called Techceleration and then the other one at the gates of intelligence. So two separate deep dives on the AI issue if people are interested. And that techceleration title subject line was a Rob Lauches original. So shout out to Rob, because that was a brilliant addition to your newsletter, Cam. It was awesome. And folks,

if you are not getting redacted or forthreading or, oh gosh, I forgot to name them all. The Docket, Blue Bonnet Bulletin, Ripples, Precedented Times, then you have to go to the text.news to subscribe right now. You have a myriad of different newsletter offerings from our awesome team with unique perspectives, unique beats and subject matter that interests them that they pump out every single week or monthly. And you can subscribe to whichever ones you want if you subscribe to the Texan. So go do that. Also, if you're a subscriber or if you are not a subscriber and you're just receiving our emails, we sent out a reader survey a couple of weeks ago in the deadline to fill that out and let us know your feedback is on Sunday. So you got two more days

to fill that out and let us know what you think, how we can be serving you better. And honestly, it's good for you too. You get entered to win something from our merch store of your choice, which is we have some pretty sweet merch. So definitely go fill out that survey. It is in your inbox. Just search the Texan survey or something along those lines and it will pop up or reach out to us or go to my newsletter, other people's newsletter. We've linked it time and time again, but from the editors last week, definitely linked it. If you have lost the link or the email. Thank you for listening to that plug. I'm quickly going to talk about a few stories from team members who are not on the podcast this week. Right off the bat, Matt Stringer, I want to give you a shout out. This

is his kind of introduction to law school. It's all starting for him. So we're excited for Matt in this next season of his life. He'll still be doing some work for us and we're excited about that. But in the midst of all of this transition and moving and getting set up with orientation and his first kind of dipping his toe into the world of law school. He is still published this week. Mexican citizen pleads guilty in scheme to smuggle ammunition to drug cartels. It's a wild story. The man who faces decades in prison was part of a ring that smuggled money to the U.S. to buy millions of rounds of ammunition. That is not an exaggeration. We don't do that here.. to buy millions of rounds of ammunition. That is not an exaggeration.

We don't do that here. It's literally millions of rounds of ammunition to armed deadly drug cartels south of the border. He lists what kind of rounds they were in the article and the exact number that according to the DOJ that we know. It's very interesting. This suspect faces up to 20 years in prison and up to a $500,000 fine. Notably, in March, multiple men were arrested in South Texas in connection to a smuggling scheme to supply the cartels with high-powered rifles. Last November, DPS seized multiple firearms, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and body armor, all destined to supply cartels in a raid near El Paso. This is certainly not something new, definitely something to keep an eye on. We see these press releases

come out alarmingly frequently, I'll say that. So definitely keep an eye out for Matt's reporting, and it's important to be aware of what is going on down at the border. A couple more stories here, three to be exact. Kim Roberts reported on Carroll ISD this week. There was a hearing to delay the implementation of new Title IX rules. It was held earlier this week in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Basically, the hearing arose out of a lawsuit brought by Carroll ISD against the Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Education, for the implementation of new rules under Title IX that seek to protect the gender identity of

a student from discrimination. So this is a suit we've been following for a long time, some developments and a very interesting kind of legal back and forth between the attorneys representing both sides here. So definitely worth a read at the texan.news. Holly Hansen had a very interesting story this week as well a texas congressman very notably left the freedom caucus the u.s freedom caucus representative troy nels congressman uh from the houston area announced that he would resign from the freedom caucus monday night after members voted to expel representative warren

davidson a republican from ohio Brad, your country, your countrymen, amid controversy over endorsements in a hotly contested Virginia primary race. This is a statement from Nels. I respect the house freedom caucus and have been aligned with their conservative positions. I want to grow the organization and encourage more members to join with tonight's vote. It was clear that that is not their objective. So some fighting words there from Nels and definitely worth going and reading the rest of Holly's story. She goes into all the details, the Trump factor of it

all. I'd encourage y'all to go read that. Additionally, a story that has certainly gained some traction. Fort Worth ISD receives a grant to purchase electric school buses as part of a $5 billion federal program. This is from Seth Moorhead. Basically, the EPA and Fort Worth ISD announced at a press conference that the district was awarded $6 million to purchase 15 electric buses. notably and what's very interesting about this is that this program is supposedly aimed at helping student achievement via electric buses so pretty interesting criteria there and certainly worth going and reading about where this money is being funneled and how these buses are the addition of these buses with Fort Worth ISD fleet are aimed to help student achievement. So very interesting. Yes, Cameron, what you got? Just to mention something that we published today, day of recording, that the SAVE Act did pass the U.S. House. And the reason why I wanted to bring it up,

the SAVE Act, for people that don't know, it's essentially to ensure that illegal immigrants are not voting in federal elections. And so it's amending the National Voter Registration Act. But as it was being discussed on the House floor, Troy Nels spoke. And as is common with Troy Nels, he was wearing his Trump gear. He was wearing a Trump tie this time. Nice big red Trump tie. Wow. I thought I'd mention that.

Yes, that seems to be certainly something that Congressman Nels is very comfortable with doing and always provides some interesting fodder for conversation. Interesting to watch different congressional members and how they approach the presidential cycle, the Trump of it all, and certainly Nels is one that is very supportive of the former president. Interesting. Cameron, anything else to add on the SAVE Act? That was a big story. Yeah, I will highlight here that by a vote of 221 to 198, it was passed in the House on Wednesday. And notably, I will mention two names, two Texas Democrats actually broke with their party to vote to pass the bill, Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez. And one last thing I'll mention is Cuellar, who did vote to pass this bill, also voted in favor of blocking a law that grants illegal aliens in the District of Columbia the ability to vote in local elections because Congress actually has oversight of the D.C. government.

And I'll just mention one more thing about it is Colin Allred actually joined with Cuellar voting to block the law for the D.C. local elections, but he actually voted no on this most recent SAVE Act vote. So just a bit of discrepancies there on history of voting in terms of securing them or preventing illegal immigrants from voting in elections. Yeah, definitely a notable, particularly in his race against Senator Cruz. I also will plug Brad's piece. We have a lot of stories this week detailing some campaign fundraising numbers that came out. Brad, do you want to quickly hit those numbers? Tell us a little bit about where Cruz and Allred ended up. Yeah, so both of them posted for the second quarter. That's April through June. Both Ted Cruz and Colin Allred posted very large

fundraising hauls. Both were above 10 million. Ted Cruz was $12.5, I think, $12.6 million. Allred was $10.5 million. And just a lot of money. Both are really getting in the groove fundraising-wise. Cruz's was the single largest quarterly hall that he's ever had. And it is, in one quarter, $.6 million dollars more than he raised the whole first half of his 2018 race so that's notable all red uh cruz has 22 million dollars cash on hand all red has about 10 million dollars cash on hand his quarterly haul there was slightly higher than what Beto O'Rourke pulled in

in the second quarter of 2018 when Beto started really racking up large fundraising numbers. So the whole race already has outpaced O'Rourke on the fundraising level. He's been very effective at that. The question is, does it turn into a tight race like O'Rourke turned it into? We saw, I think, O'Rourke raise something like $80 million throughout his race against Cruz. For Allred, he's about halfway there so far.

I think he's raised $38 or so million million total, but yeah, that's about it. There you go. And we have more campaign numbers, fundraising numbers that we'll be watching over the coming weeks. So keep an eye out on Twitter, keep an eye out at the Texan. We'll keep it all coming. Let's move on to our tweeter-y section here, gentlemen. I can start us off this week. I don't usually start, but I'm feeling a little spry today. So here I go. Intense flooding leads to wildlife disruption. Local spots alligator in neighboring waters. Residents urge to exercise caution and keep a safe distance from potentially dangerous animals. This is in Missouri City, Texas. Okay. So this is in the

floodwaters, Hurricane Beryl. And you see this video of an alligator swimming in front of some houses, swimming in front of some docks, some decks. And it's, you just see its little nose peeking up like alligators do and folks keeping a very keen eye on it. But it's certainly an area that appears to not be typically flooded by water. There's like a plant or some sort of median in the video and you just see an alligator swimming by. It's wild. And certainly a danger you don't necessarily have at the forefront of your mind when your house is flooding is that alligators might be lurking in those floodwaters. So a wild video. this was

posted by fox 26 houston definitely worth checking out i'll link it in my newsletter too and i think i've retweeted it but an alligator tweetery uh is certainly always something that i am very amenable to sharing that's cool thanks guys appreciate it. I just think we talked about alligators so much on the podcast. It's like a recurring theme for the Texas. Cameron, why would you talk about alligators all the time? I don't know what you're talking about. What was the name? There was a story.

Was it a month ago or so? I think we talked about someone had an alligator as a pet, and it got loose or lost or something wally wally they found wally wally i actually don't know what happened to wally did they find wally i thought they found wally hold on oh on the fly research wally people need to know what happened to wally because wally was a tiktok sensation oh my gosh there was a uh emotional support allocate can't even get through the headline emotional support allocator taken and released in swamp oh they caught it oh that's right what didn't somebody

i think somebody stole the alligator to free him with the intent to free him claiming animal cruelty or um entrapment of some sort i think that's what happened um uh wally went missing over the weekend was taken by pranksters and then dumped in a swamp his owner says i don't know what happened though to him this was a facebook post per the owner so i don't know how much evidence we have of this claim we need a deeper dive on wally has helped him out of a deep emotional depression over the years you can reach in and rub his tongue he refuses to close his mouth but we don't know why he's six feet long and in length and has an estimated bite of three thousand pounds per square inch

his uh tongue is certainly not something i would just reach out to pet considering that bite force crazy okay well we've spent more time on alligators than i was even intending so let's move on brad what do you got for us i am well hold on let's see should we we go Brad or should we go Cameron next? Let's see. Oh, Cameron, let's go with you and let's leave Brad as the grand finale here this week. So I came across this story. There's actually a Texas-based company that is putting up ammo vending machines in grocery stores. And this is a story from an NBC affiliate in Dallas, Fort Worth. And it says, ammunition is the latest product being offered at the push of a button.

A company has installed computerized vending machines to sell ammunitions in grocery stores. Patrons can pick up bullets along with a gallon of milk. So I wanted to ask you guys, have you ever come across any weird, strange vending machines? I'll give you an example, give you a time to think. There was a natural foods co-op type grocery store that had a vending machine but for nut milks where you could bring your own bottle put it in the little slot and choose you want almond milk cashew milk walnut milk and you could just pick it up right there freshly squeezed nut milk wow i don't know that you, uh, I think you,

you blend them and you, you make them into a pulp and then you, then you, uh, strain it. Cause I, I actually, which this would kill Brad if he ate,

if he drank it, but I make my own almond milk and that's how you do it. That would kill me. Yeah. We, we know this, uh, firsthand. firsthand uh it did not result in an untimely death but it did result in uh an unfortunate afternoon at the office i'll leave it at that yes fun stuff um well cameron i don't know i'm trying'm trying to think of a specifically unique vending machine. I've seen a Lego one.

Oh, that's fun. Yeah. That's cool. I love every movie theater or amusement park always has the dip and dots vending machine. You know, that was supposed to be the ice cream of the future, but it sort of remained in the early 2000s. There hasn't been

many inventions on the ice cream. Dippin' Dots. Yay or nay? As a novelty item, it gets two thumbs up, but I'm not heading to the grocery store to pick up a quart of Dippin' Dots.

Well, no, Cameron. You're also not going to the grocery store to pick up a quart of Dippin' Dots. Well, no, Cameron, you're also not going to the grocery store to pick up a regular quart of ice cream either. I'm a regular person too. Okay. If I want ice cream, I'm going to go get ice cream. But I will admit if I have ice cream, I will get, uh, what's the, what's the brand that is like the light ice cream?

Halo Top. Halo Top. That's the light ice cream? Halo Top. Halo Top. That's the one. I love Halo Top. Oh, it's so good. Yeah, that's pretty much, we're boring, but that's pretty much exclusively what we get and it is delicious. I think Dippin' Dots

are much like the Beatles and entirely overrated. Hot take. I agree with the Dippin overrated. Wow. Hot take. Yeah. I agree with the dip in dots part of that sentence. Okay. You know the song, She Likes the Beatles and I Like the Stones?

Yes. A banger. A banger, as it were. I don't know. We'll show it to you after, okay um okay bradley i'm excited about this i know you're excited about this this was awesome to wake up to this morning i wake up and i do the first thing i always do is look at twitter because i am addicted and I have to get my fix. And I was welcomed by a very interesting reply to my pinned tweet, which is a very boring tweet about a list of Texas general election matchups.

And it is from Brad Johnson, quote, Big Bad Brad. And I'm like, what the heck? And he posts a picture of the quarterback, Brad Johnson, who won a Super Bowl. And accompanying the picture is the text, Big B! With three exclamation points. Someone put me on your Twitter profile. Dot, dot, dot. In quotes, you demand, Brad.

I'm like, what the heck is this? Well, in my Twitter bio, I say, unfortunately not the Super Bowl winning quarterback. Somebody must have seen that and sent it to him. And this is the actual Brad Johnson, former NFL quarterback. And he jumped in my mentions. It was very strange, but awesome. Yeah, very cool. Because I have such a... Brad, what was your reaction?

Like your immediate facial, vocal, I don't care. What was your reaction? I mean mean it was it was really cool i was excited um i wouldn't i don't know if i'd say a kid in a candy store level but pretty close to it um but like you know i have a very generic name and there are billions, if not trillions, of Brad Johnsons in this world. But the most famous one is the one who won the 2002 Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And throughout childhood growing up, people would always make references to that, to him, and sharing a name with name with him so it was really cool that this guy just jumped in my mentions and yeah um well he seems to have reinvented himself

in retirement he's become a trick shot legend post he posts tons of videos of him making crazy basketball shots i would do that too. Wait, like what years, what year did he win the Super Bowl? 2002. 2002, okay. So how old does he have to be now? What's the math? I can just look on Wikipedia.

He is 55. Also, I just feel like one of his, 55, okay okay i just feel like one of his friends must have been trying to look him up on twitter find his account look at a trick shot video and came across your account because you have a lot of seo buzzwords in your twitter bio for him to be able to not just your name right because they're like to your, there are a lot of Brad Johnsons. But you're a well-followed Brad Johnson who also mentions a quarterback in the Super Bowl.

I just imagine that there was somehow a buddy of his came across your profile. Yeah, I bet that's how they came across it. I don't know. Pretty cool. Pretty cool. It's awesome.

Brad Johnson-ception. Lord. I asked him to be on our podcast, kind of tongue-in-cheek, and he said, I'd love to, but I don't like to talk politics. I try to stay out of that. And I'm like, you know what? Mad respect. I love that reply, too. like, you know what? Mad respect. I love that he replied, too.

Yeah, he's in my DM. He slid. Oh, wait, you guys are DMing now? Yeah, he slid into my DMs. That's, oh, he slid into your DMs? Well, I replied to his reply, and then he responded in DM. That is so wild. Okay, wait.

Now I need to go find... Okay, first of all, I need to like it. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. You still didn't tell us what your reaction was. You need to, like, reenact it for me. I know. Because I wasn't there.

I can't say it on the podcast. Oh. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But he's not the first NFL player to reach out to me oh i remember in the last couple years yeah that's right i forget the guy's name he's a lineman until recently in mejia he's from mejia and i did that story on the limestone county appraisal district

um the valley is going haywire he lives there and owns property there former cardinals lineman yeah he just emailed me one day i was like what the heck so weird so random but yeah pretty cool that is so cool well that didn't even happen to me and it's the highlight of my week so killer killer tweeter e bradley, anything to add before we let our listeners get back to their regularly scheduled programming? Nothing from me. No. You guys are really original and fun to listen to. That was a serious compliment.

Follow me on X at Cameron S. Abrams. I need some more followers and if you cameron we need also to find you some sort of like sports hero that shares your name good luck with that i know i'd say you know just just go watch the brad johnson's highlights from 2002 great the man was on a tear. A heater like no other. Solid. Well, folks, on that note, thanks for listening to the Weekly Roundup,

and we will catch you next week. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you enjoy our show, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you want more of our stories, subscribe to The Texan at thetexan.news. Follow us on social media for the latest in Texas politics. And send any questions for our team to our mailbag by DMing us on Twitter or shooting us an email to editor at thetexan.news. Tune in next week for another episode of our weekly roundup.

God bless you and God bless Texas.